Going Commando at Changdeokgung Palace

Photos: South Korea: Changdeokgung Palace and Around

It was too much to resist, putting “commando” into this title. I’m happy to report that it’s true: I did indeed go commando today, since I really wanted to explore on my own but I was also really worried about the chafing issue. I decided to bring along a pair of underwear, some baby powder and some deodorant, just in case, but to just go sans-underwear. Don’t worry, I was wearing pants. While it was still vaguely uncomfortable at times, this solution seems to have worked. Towards the end of the day, the sweat made walking a little more painful, but the baby powder helped. In summary: I was able to do what I wanted to do, which is a good thing.
And what I decided to do was take a day to sight-see by myself. This included attempts at finding and purchasing tickets for both bus and subways passes, as well as finding my way around a new (to me) area of Seoul. Mara was nice enough to loan me two Seoul travel guides, which helped immensely. Armed with these, a subway map, the previously mentioned anti-chafing supplies, a bottle of water and some Won, I started out around 10:30am this morning.
My first challenge of the day was getting oriented. I have walked with Mara and Justin several times to various locations, all connected to a specific intersection, from which I based all of my directions. Unfortunately, this morning I couldn’t find that intersection. The reason for this is that I mistook one main street for another, and so I ended up going in two wrong directions before I hit the jackpot on the third. I attempted asking several pedestrians and one construction worker, but I didn’t know the Korean word for terminal and they kept pointing me to street-side bus stops, which I knew wasn’t correct. All of this took me about twenty minutes. Once I figured out that before any other directions could take place, I had to make a right turn to get to the landmark intersection, I was all right. Mara had told me that the bus station was two lights down, kitty-corner, and up some stairs. I made it to the bus terminal and went up the stairs. The first floor didn’t have anything in it, the second floor looked like apartments, the third floor had some kind of vaulted door which I didn’t attempt to open, and the fourth floor seemed to be an artist’s co-op or something. When I asked someone about buying a bus ticket, they said, “Down one floor.”
Eventually I went back to the ground floor and immediately saw, in side a glass door, the bus terminal. Duh. I went in, bought my ticket to Nambu Bus Station, stood in two wrong lines, and eventually made it onto my bus. The bus ride to another subway line was about fifty minutes. It was quiet and cool on the bus, which made for nice conditions as I read up about the place I was going. I found a restaurant recommendation that I decided to attempt following up on, as well as a neighborhood I wanted to check out in addition to the palace. There seemed to be a lot to see, some of which would just be me walking and gawking.
Once I reached Nambu Bus Station, I found the subway station just across the street and got on the right train to Anguk station. Nambu station was number 341 and Anguk, my destination, was number 328. It took me about twenty or twenty-five minutes, although I had to stand the entire way because the subway was very crowded!
Having successfully navigated myself to Anguk station, I left the train station feeling pretty good. I decided to try to find my way to the Bukchon neighborhood using a fairly un-detailed map from the guidebook. It turned out to be a very picturesque area, full of pedestrian and motor traffic, old and new buildings, nature and construction. As I wandered, I came across SeonHak Won, a Buddhist temple or school. It was just down an alleyway of plain, squat stores, and so it surprised and delighted me. There was a sign, which I regret not taking a picture of since there’s no information that I can find on the internet about it. The sign described the history of the building, which I can’t now recollect. It was pretty, though!
It was a great walk so far! I stopped at a tourist information booth and got a (much better detailed) map, as well as directions to the restaurant I wanted to check out, called Bukchon Kalguksu and described as serving handmade Korean noodles and dumplings in one of the guidebooks Mara had loaned me. After a few wrong turns and re-directing by passers-by, I found it. There was a line out the door and one lady, who confirmed that this was the place, told me, “Twenty minute, maybe more!” I almost decided to wait it out, but a look at the time had me hightailing it to Changdeokgung Palace, because the last English guided tour was listed as being at 1:30pm in the guide book, which gave me just ten minutes to find it.
Two wrong turns and a kindly stranger’s help later, I made it to the entryway. I paid the small entry fee and was told that the English tour was at 2:30pm. Guess I’d better write to the guidebook people! Anyway, I went into the grounds to take a gander around and to find out about Huwon tickets.
One of the main reasons I wanted to go to this palace, which is just one of five main royal  palaces in Seoul, was because of it’s famed “Secret Garden,” Huwon in Korean (Biwon in Japanese). The guidebooks all tout it as being amazing and worth paying for the guided tour, which is the only way to gain entry. As it turned out, the English guided tour of Huwon was at 2:30pm as well. Bad timing on someone’s part! I could walk around the main palace grounds myself and read the signs, but I really thought that a guided tour would be more interesting. The garden, however, was strictly available via tour. I could only do one and I spent the next forty minutes waffling about what to do. Pay more for the garden tour? Skip the garden tour? Go eat lunch?! As I waffled, I wandered around the grounds, admiring the amazing architecture and layout.
In the end, I decided that the reason I chose this adventure today was Huwon, and so I bought the ticket (almost twice the price of the admission fee) and waited out the time for the tour sipping my water and walking around, taking in some of the signage and all of the views. It turned out to be the right choice, I think, because the Huwon tour was awesome. Our tour guide was a funny Korean woman dressed in a beautiful outfit. I’m not sure if it was a period costume or just the outfit they made their tour guides wear (like a docent), but the silk shirt, gloves and bright red skirt just highlighted the tour. She also had a wonderful sense of humor. She told us up front that this was a two hour, four kilometer walking tour, and weren’t we glad we’d paid for the privilege?!
It turns out that even though the maps, guidebooks and even the admissions guard all refer to the gardens as being “in back of” the Palace, Huwon takes up two thirds of the entire property. I forget how many acres our guide said the whole thing took, but it impressed me that the majority of the area was specifically for gardens. Now, this wasn’t a garden like you may traditionally think of gardens. It is composed of winding walkways,  stone steps and hidden little coves, each with it’s own house, gazebo or pond. While most of the buildings have been refurbished in the last century, there are some remaining structures from three hundred years ago. The original buildings were mostly burnt down during the Japanese invasion in the 16th century. There are some trees remaining, however, that are over five hundred years old, like the juniper tree in the picture to the right (it’s estimated at 750 years old). Our guide said that it’s only in the decade or so that the tree has become bent and short, due to typhoons. Several trees in Huwon and the palace grounds are actually designated as national monument.
Some key things that stood out to me during this walking tour:

• * The way the architecture overall seemed to move with the nature. The curve of the roofs, the shape and path of the walls, and the placement of the gazebos and benches, all seemed to have been planned with the garden, as opposed to the other way around.
• * Each nook had it’s purpose. One gazebo, overlooking a u-shape in a rock that created a small waterfall, was purely for poetry contests and drinking wine, a royal “game” that had a funny ring of truth to it.
• I could imagine the royal family and their guests taking strolls, sitting and dreaming, or letting the quiet and beauty of the surroundings soothe them as they pondered whatever issues of the day bothered them.
• Some of the building roofs had small figurines on them, making it seem as though a procession was approaching the upturned corner they were near. They seemed to be supplicants or Buddhas, but I’m not sure.
• Though autumn hasn’t really hit yet, a select few (just two or three) of the trees were starting to change color, adding splashes of magnificent color to the green forest.

During this walking tour, I made friends with a Hungarian woman named Bea. We mostly walked together, and thanks to her I have a picture of me in front of the royal library, which is in the garden area.That is the picture at the end of the blog.
After the tour, Bea and I decided to find some food. We passed several possibilities as we wound our way through the alleys of the neighborhood and finally settled on one that seemed to have good pictures and also to serve food that Bea would like. She isn’t a seafood person at all. She ordered a breaded pork dish and I ordered a soup with a small side of the breaded pork. Hey, I was hungry, ok? How was I to know the soup bowl would be bigger than my head, and filled to the brim with soup! The meal also came with a small bowl of broth for each of us and a salad that we shared. Both our meals combined cost under $14USD. And it was GOOD! I suppose the fact that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast had something to do with it, although everything really was tasty and I couldn’t finish the soup.
During the walk and our early dinner, I found out that Bea is a harpist for the Budapest opera house. She is currently on a tour with an orchestra, which she was asked to join as a guest musician. They’ve been traveling for this tour and she’s already been to Taiwan and China. She’ll be in Seoul for three more days and flies home on Monday, wrapping up a very busy two weeks of playing concerts, exploring the cities and flying from here to there! Bea spoke pretty good English and seemed like a frank, straightforward kind of person. She gave me her e-mail address and offered to show me around Budapest when I traveled there. We rode the subway together until she had to switch trains and we waved a cheerful good-bye. I’m glad to have met someone and made a friend today!
After that, I had two stations until my subway station – Nambu Bus Station – and then I bought a ticket back to Songtan. The rest of the trip home was pretty easy. When I got back to the apartment it was 7pm and no one was home. Everyone had gone to services (Jewish Shabbat services on base) and then out to dinner after. I was just as glad to have a little time to myself to unwind, air my achy feet and mull over my day. I even managed to figure out how to Skype-call my parents and got to chat with them for a few minutes before the Neiman clan got home.
Tonight we wrote out a tentative itinerary for our Jeju weekend, and I packed my day pack close to bursting. We get up early to walk to the bus station and take the bus to Gimpo airport, where we’ll catch our early flight to Jeju. I’m not bringing my computer with me (no room!) so I probably won’t blog until Monday night or Tuesday.
All in all, today was a great first day out alone. There were ups and there were downs, but in the end I’m really happy with how everything went!

--Z